NavList:

Hi All,

I just took a ship from Anchorage Alaska to Singapore. She had onboard a Freiberger sextant, the first I had seen or used.

Here's a photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37977699@N00/7774059416/

I can't say that I was too impressed to be honest. It was fairly light, being all Aluminum, and the shades were nice. The unit was also well constructed and the movement of the arm and micrometer drum were silky smooth. Still the non-standard fork precluded the use of my 7x35 scope which was unfortunate.

The biggest thing that bothered me was that the micrometer drum had me interpolate within 1' incriments. For a Lunarian, this is quite unacceptable. I want to interpolate at 0.1' or 0.2'.

The weather on the 21 day trip was terrible for stars and shooting in general for my whole trip. I did manage a few sun lines which worked out well, but no stars. I will say that shooting at 60 deg N made this the closest to the pole I've ever shot. It's just too bad there was no chance to shoot a round of stars up there.

Sadly the ship, MV VIRGINIAN, along with the sextant, will be on the beach being turned into razor blades in a few weeks, as the owners decided to sell it for scrap. So much for my second command. I guess that's the way of the shipping world.

Jeremy
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